Affirmative action in its original sense did not require proportionality or diversity. It was a remedial measure. Its part of the reason why I am much more in favor of affirmative action for blacks and American Indians than other minorities and certainly more than any affirmative action in favor of whites.
They didn’t (not formally at least) but they were part of the overall discriminatory system. They existed due to discrimination against blacks, and having schools that don’t have disproportionate numbers of one race - either one - is part of the overall goal of ending a discriminatory system.
If you think that’s just about “diversity,” fine. I think it shows that the line between remedying past discrimination and diversity as its own goal is blurry.
HBCUs came about as a (partial) remedy for that discriminatory system. Affirmative action is (or should be) about remedying and countering discrimination – if a university is not representative of the local population (like some, but not all, HBCUs), but for reasons other than discrimination (HBCUs do not, as far as I know, discriminate by race or ethnicity in any way), then AA should not apply, in my opinion.
Herding blacks into their own segregated schools was a remedy for discrimination? Not in this sense of the term “remedy.”
If we end up with a system in which we have many schools that are all-black, it doesn’t look like we’ve remedied the past system of discrimination to me.
In the sense of “black people wanted/needed education, so they established these HBCUs to meet these needs despite the overall discrimination they faced elsewhere”.
I agree that we haven’t remedied past discrimination, though I’m unaware of any school (HBCU or otherwise) that is all-black. Some HBCUs are majority white (or majority non-black).
Yes, it was a remedy. Certainly not a perfect one but, a remedy nonetheless. Here’s a short history of (many) HBCUs in the US.
So first, many HBCUs were created to provide education to Blacks who were explicitly excluded from majority institutions. One prominent example of this exclusion was Thurgood Marshall, who was rejected from U of Md. Law School because of his race.
Second, HBCUs have never by law or tradition excluded White people, so the is no discriminatory practice that needs to be corrected. The reason HBCUs are generally predominately Black is because White people don’t apply to go to them. It’s also why some are now not predominately Black.
Well, yeah, but to use “remedy” - the same word we’re using to talk about getting rid of discrimination - is incredibly unfair and misleading. It was not a remedy for discrimination, it was the result of it.
Most are far more black than the population as a whole.